Out of the Box

Tony Hawk's American Wasteland

Initial Verdict Promising

If you couldn't wait for the 360 version and bought it for Xbox, consider yourself warned, but everyone else will love it.

Full review to be posted after further testing!

Editor's Note:It's GameSpy's review policy to test all online-enabled games in real-world multiplayer conditions before posting a final review score. A full review of this game will be posted shortly, once it has undergone testing in the same conditions that you'll play it in. Below you'll find our first impressions of the offline portions of the game.

The Tony Hawk franchise is now up to its second generational facelift. Back in 2001, the difference between Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 on PlayStation and the version on PlayStation 2 felt like night and day. The levels were more expansive, the graphics were amazingly different, and the introduction of online play (though at that point it took some craftiness, as Sony did not support online until roughly nine months later) made a huge difference. The same could be said for the technological difference between THPS 2 on PS1, N64, and Dreamcast and THPS 2X, which was an Xbox launch title for the franchise.
Fast forward to 2005. The seventh game in six years, Tony Hawk's American Wasteland released in October for current-gen consoles. Some criticized it as more of the same, while we at GameSpy felt that it was a refreshing compromise between the THUG series and the classic Pro Skater game, giving it "Editor's Choice" approval. Either way, it was the first Hawk title to hit Xbox Live, which was a relief for skating fans worldwide.
For those of you who couldn't wait for Tuesday's system launch and who bought THAW for Xbox, well you could theoretically stand to keep it. The leap from current to next-gen for Tony Hawk doesn't seem nearly as dramatic in scope as the one from last generation to this current, but it still looks damn good.
Visually, the game is exceptional. No one with an Xbox 360 will want to go back to playing a graphically inferior version. Textures are more detailed and the polygon count is stratospheric. There's no doubt that if you've already got THAW and have been through it, you'll see a dramatic difference between current and next-gen.

If there's a strong selling point for replacing your Xbox version besides graphics, it would be controls. The 360 controller is ergonomically superior to a Controller S in weight and button layout. No more taking your thumb off the four face buttons to reach for a black or white button to perform a function; the 360 version plays remarkably similar to the PS2 due to the mapping of left and right buttons as well as the left and right triggers.
Gameplay is the same (so far) as the current-gen version with the same goals and maps. The storyline is still the same, with players taking on the role of a skater from flyover country who's come to LA to become a skating badass among the big boys. Sprinklings of wacky hijinks infused with a heavy emphasis on skating make the title a definite winner and among the year's best games.
We'll be testing the multiplayer on Xbox Live on release day before we give a final verdict. Why? Because testing it out on servers with programmers is one thing, but playing with real live gamers on a stress tested server is another. We're not going to speculate on what multiplayer is like -- we're going to report on the same sort of online experience that you, the reader, will experience when you walk in the store to pick it up two days before Turkey Dinner. And if you don't play online? Well, other than it being a matter of time before you'll be forced to (insert wink here), consider this a speculation on the overall experience before we factor in the rest of it.
Having said that, the game is solid. Again, if you have the Xbox version already, it's a judgment call as to whether it's worth trading in your existing copy (which, after a month probably will have dropped in value) for the Xbox 360 game -- this is one moment where a prior impulse buy will probably come back to burn you. It's the same game with better graphics and a better controller. Take that as you will.